


Anniversary Song

by littledaybreaker



Category: Bandom, Real Person Fiction
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-21
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2018-02-14 02:15:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2174229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littledaybreaker/pseuds/littledaybreaker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in which Taylor falls in love with Dallon and tries to pretend she has not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Anniversary Song

**Author's Note:**

> this is silly. don't read it.

“I don't know how I survived those days before I held your hand.” ~Cowboy Junkies, Anniversary Song

 

Taylor loved Dallon the instant she met him, which was probably where it had all gone wrong in the first place. With everyone else it had been a gradual process, sort of, and by the time it happened it was falling apart, maybe because she suffocated them or maybe because she was afraid of what would happen if she let herself fall. But with Dallon it had happened so fast, she didn't even have time to catch her breath.

So she tried to keep it from coming instead, tried to ignore it, to pull away and not let herself get sucked in to his smile, his dorkiness, those two sweet little kids he was so devoted to (the existence of his children was, in and of itself, a pretty good reason not to fall in love with him, because she damn well knew she wouldn't be able to stop herself from loving them, too, and that was a lot of pressure on little kids' shoulders), his talent and his genuine, kind, gentle nature, even though every moment she spent with him she felt like she was drowning just a little bit more. 

But they were friends, of course, and she went to his shows and he went to hers, when they could, and she had tea parties with Amelie and played cars with Knox and brought them presents whenever she saw them, she sent him a billion stupid text messages and pictures of her cats, and maybe there was some harmless flirting mixed in there, but it was just that—harmless. She could be friends with someone she was interested in, so in your face, tabloid media. 

And for awhile it seemed like it was actually possible to fake it until she made it, to be friends with him, to love his children, without it becoming something more—or at least, without it becoming something unbearable. She actually liked being friends with him, letting their lives get tangled up without anything being complicated by feelings and fear and all the things that caused her love life to go down in flames time and time again. For awhile it seemed like she could actually survive like this, could be happy like this. 

She was so comfortable with the way things were going that it almost knocked the breath out of her when he asked her if she wanted to go on a date, and instead of saying yes she blurted “you mean, like a date, date?” like a big stupid idiot. But he just laughed, nodded, gave her that heartbreaking Dallon smile of his. “Yeah, like a date-date.”

He'd promised to take her dancing, but he ended up with his kids, so he invited her to have dinner at his house, and he promised up and down to make it up to her, and she promised up and down it was okay, that he didn't have to feel bad for being a dad to his kids, for God's sake. 

It could have been disappointing, she supposed, she could have made it into a big deal, all that waiting and she didn't even get a real date, but he was dressed in his dorky shirt and dorky tie and he was wearing an apron and holding a casserole dish and even if she had been disappointed she'd have been hard pressed to feel that way anymore. 

He had the table set like they were at a fancy restaurant, and they sat and ate his lasagna and talked and laughed and by the time they were done, any attempt at ignoring the fact that she was still completely, painfully in love with him was going to be nigh on impossible. 

She helped him do the dishes, and while she was putting away the casserole dish, he came up behind her and wrapped his arms around her waist. “I promised you we'd dance,” he said, “So can we?” and then all bets were off, not only could she no longer lie to herself, she knew she wouldn't be able to lie to him, either. 

The song ended, and she opened her mouth to confess, only to have Dallon tilt her face up and kiss her, making her feel like she had been standing on firm ground and someone had pulled a rug out from under her. It was the kind of kiss you gave someone when you had been in love with them for a long time and couldn't find the words, the kind of kiss people (okay, she) wrote songs about, the kind of kiss that made her unable to remember what she'd been fighting against in the first place.  
“I'm in love with you,” she told him when they finally broke the kiss, as if that was not painfully obvious, as if all signs weren't already pointing to that. But nonetheless it made her stomach grip a little with fear, as if it was all going to go to hell now with that admission.  
But Dallon smiled, tilted her face up and kissed her again. “That's good,” he said, “Because I'm in love with you.”

Taylor had always prided herself in being the kind of person who didn't say no to love, who took the leap even if the fall broke her, but now she knew that the truest things were the ones worth waiting for.


End file.
